On the recommendation of a fellow female athlete, I picked up Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World by Lauren Fleshman last week and I have NEVER FELT SO HEARD.

Though I did not get into sport in middle or high school and don’t have specific memories of the transition from my girlhood body into that of a woman, at least as an athlete, I identified deeply with Lauren’s description of her struggle to see her body as the body of an athlete–and the dangerous relationships with food that accompany that.

Nearly 20 years after Lauren was racing in high school and college, there have been advancements in the science surrounding REDS and what used to be termed the Female Athlete Triad. Voices, such as those of Dr. Stacy Sims, the FASTR team at Stanford, and others are calling for improved research on and for women in sport. The narrative is beginning to change–but it is certainly not there yet.

In comparison with running, swimming, and even road cycling, mountain biking seems to be much less of a “thin is best” culture. Still, on the endurance end of the sport, the “watts per kilo” math still guides performance. If you want to be faster, either you increase your power, or you decrease your weight. End of story.

When I entered the world of competitive cycling, I was 28. My relationship with food was already tenuous, as just a few years previously, I’d restricted my calories to the point of blacking out briefly while riding my bike to work. In my mind, I was always the “fat kid” growing up: I was tall, gangly, and don’t remember weighing less than 100 lbs (probably because I was nearly 5’10” in middle school). I have vague memories of a time before learning to look at my body self-consciously–before being aware that body shape and size mattered, but far more distinct memories of being told that my body was not the shape a woman’s body was “supposed” to be and becoming suddenly aware of my own body’s shape and size. From that point on, I experienced what seemingly every female does: the constant self-evaluation and comparison of our bodies. Whether it was my teenage self lying on the couch and checking to see if my stomach was flat, my college self frustrated that my thighs were “too big,” or my adult self noting the definition of my stomach in the mirror, there was the constant sense that whatever I saw was not “enough.”

Much like Lauren’s story details, as I began to find my place in sport, I also came face to face with the supposed “ideal” of an athlete’s body. Gratefully, at 28, I was armed with a bit of knowledge–enough to seek out the advice of a registered dietician when told by a coach that I needed to lose weight to be faster. Even there, however, I struggled with the drive to perform, to be the very best I could, and to meticulously track my food–all within a recommended calorie intake that I now recognize to be wildly insufficient for my training needs. When I eventually consulted with a second RD, Kylee Van Horn, who has done extensive work with endurance athletes who struggle with disordered eating, I began to see how my obsessive restriction was not only potentially preventing me from losing weight, but most definitely limiting my performance.

This past season, despite dealing with repeated (non-fueling-related) injuries, I had some of my best results–yet still, after a mediocre day at World Championships (maybe because I was taking a final exam on the floor of the hotel room the day before the race, or got too excited by the quality of the trails and went too hard during pre-rides?), during a conversation with my coach, was told again that if I want to be faster, I need to lose weight. Ironically, I had made it to that point in the season without obsessively weighing myself, without tracking calories, and perhaps in the best mindset of my career regarding my own body. But with that one comment, I spiraled. Maybe I wasn’t meant for this sport? Maybe I was too big? Maybe I could be better if I just lost 5, 10, 15 pounds? The glances in the mirror became more critical, the relationship with food more restrictive, and yet again, I found myself in battle with my own body instead of working with it.

I read somewhere that even thinking about eating restrictively can affect the hormonal profile in a woman’s body and cause it to want to store fat preemptively–a starvation-defense mechanism of sorts. I don’t know if the science is there to back that statement, but my experience teaches me that I perform better when I’m not wasting valuable mental and emotional resources worrying about my body and its relationship with food.

In short, whether I weigh 160lbs or 165lbs or 170lbs, my body is still an athlete’s body. Those fluctuations are cyclical and normal and don’t determine my performance on the bike. I’m grateful for Lauren’s vulnerability in telling her own story, and for those who are continuing to advance the science specific to women in sport. For the other female athletes out there, and all those who are following in our footsteps, know that your body does NOT have to fit a specific mold to be strong and powerful and fast. Fuel the work, allow your body to change through the seasons, and don’t be afraid of rest and recovery. We’re in this together.